


Accepted

by Pointeofdance



Series: Possessed Trilogy [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Supernatural
Genre: Demonic Possession, Forgiveness, Identity Reveal, Secret Identity, Self-Acceptance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 07:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9375338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pointeofdance/pseuds/Pointeofdance
Summary: She thought that she'd never see them again. Why must they keep coming into her life? And why must they do it when her whole team is around? Based on Katie Cassidy and the fact that she plays both Laurel in Arrow and Ruby in Supernatural. Sequel to Helped. Final installment in the Possessed Trilogy!





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! Welcome to the third and final installation of the Possessed trilogy! It's been two years since I started working on this and I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who has supported these stories!
> 
> Now, just a couple of notes before starting. This takes place at the beginning of season 4 for Arrow, but I messed around with the timelines a bit. Basically, Oliver and Felicity are back, the team is fighting Ghosts, but they don't really know about Darhk or what's going on yet. For Supernatural, nothing of the main season plots are involved with this story so just believe they had some downtime. I believe that's everything, on with the story!
> 
> (Oh, and this story isn't beta'd so feel free to point out any errors)

She observed the area carefully. The Ghosts were moving large black crates from one badly damaged truck to their own, one of the Ghosts directing two others. 

None were paying true attention to their surroundings which bothered her. Most of the parties that they had come upon had been extremely cautious. What had changed? She tightened her hold on her batons. Something wasn’t right.

"Be ready on my mark," Oliver said quietly in her ear. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and gave her full focus to the voice in the earpiece. "In three, two, one."   


Simultaneously, there were twin twangs of bowstrings and groans as they hit their marks in the backs of knees. She jumped down from her perch and headed straight for the two downed men who were getting to their feet. Oliver and Thea would head to the leader and take care of him. She held her two batons firmly as she began to weave and twirl around the two men who were now fighting brutally, the arrows in their legs seeming to have no effect. She roundkicked one in the face and he went down like a sack of bricks. She turned to the other and dodged as his fist came swinging. She could hear a struggle behind her and knew that Diggle had joined her. She continued to fight the man in front of her, but her attacks seemed to have no effect. Her eyes narrowed in concentration and ferociously pushed against the man, but no reaction still.   


A gunshot rang through the room and the man in front of her groaned and fell to the ground. She spun behind her to face Diggle. Oliver had been extremely specific in saying that there would be absolutely no gun use unless there was dire need of it. They were struggling to capture one alive for information, after all. But he looked just as shocked as she was as another gunshot rang out and the man in front of him fell to a wound obviously not caused by Diggle's gunless hands.    


He turned to face her, shock in his eyes. His eyes widened even further as he pointed behind her. She turned and her heart dropped. Running towards them were two signs of trouble. Well, one was a sure sign of trouble while the other made her heart ache as she hadn't thought she'd see him again, at least not for a much longer time.    


Dean was the one with the gun out, having obviously taken the shots. He was angled in the direction of the leader that Oliver and Thea were still fighting. He was maneuvering around them but it was hard to get a clear shot with how quick the vigilantes were moving. Sam was running straight to her with a weird looking knife in his hand.    


"Laurel, catch!" he called and tossed the knife at her.    


Under different circumstances, she might have questioned the intelligence behind the decision, but she caught it deftly in her hand, thanking her training that she had managed to catch it without stabbing herself. Without a second thought, she sprinted towards the main fight. The siblings were putting in a hell of a fight, but it was obvious that both were tiering against their adversary. As she went over, Thea got kicked in the side and went flying.   


"No!" she screamed and jumped in Thea's place. She used the baton in her left hand to parry a strike but couldn't find an opening to use the knife. Of course, it didn't help that as soon as the man caught sight of it, he backed up several feet.   


"Where did you get that?" he asked with a hint of nervousness in his voice.   


"Hmm, this?" she asked, tapping the knife to her chin, faking confidence she didn't actually feel. If the Winchesters were here, that meant something outside of the normal was occurring. However, if the sight of one knife could instill panic in these humanoid creatures (as she suspected they were not human), then perhaps they weren't in that much trouble. "Maybe you've heard of the Winchesters?"   


The man gasped and spun around as she looked pointedly over his shoulder. A third gun shot ran through the room, but this creature was stronger than the other two as he managed to just collapse to his knees instead of all the way to the ground.    


"Bullets with demon traps on them come in handy," Dean explained with a grin as he lowered the gun. He gestured at the man. "Would you like to do the honors?"

She glanced at Sam. "There's no saving the guy?"   


He shook his head. "Especially not with the bullet now, but I doubt it would have been possible before anyway. Ruby took good care of your body in comparison to most and even you had to be rushed to the hospital with serious injuries. I doubt this guy is so lucky. He's likely dead already."   


"Damn," she muttered, not liking her decision. With sympathy only for the poor guy who had gotten possessed, she shoved the knife into the demon's chest. He screamed and what looked like electricity flowed over his skin. She grimly drew the knife out. "New toy?"   


"Angel blade," Sam explained. "Works against pretty much anything."   


"Except the things we actually need to kill," Dean muttered.   


She kept her expression neutral. "Well, you wouldn't be able to call yourself Winchesters unless trouble followed you everywhere."   


"Whatever, blondie," Dean said, rolling his eyes. She had to stop herself from growling at him. He knew that she hated that nickname, especially since the de-Ruby- fied her was most definitely  _ not _ blonde.   


"What are you guys doing in Starling?" she asked instead, crossing her arms before correcting herself. "No, stupid question. What do you plan to do about the demons?"   


Sam shrugged stiffly. She could see how much her coldness was hurting him, but she couldn’t allow herself to open back up. Not now. "Just what we always do: send them back to hell. Near as we can tell though, this is the last bunch. You can keep that knife though just in case more come back. It'll work against pretty much anything you come across, too."   


"Used to be the rarest weapon in the world and now we're handing them out like party favors," Dean snorted. "Better keep that safe."   


There was a very distinct throat clearing behind her and her insides squeezed. "No way in hell, Arrow, am I explaining this to you. It's none of your damn business and these guys are leaving now."   


"It was made my damn business the moment they stepped into this city," Oliver growled with his voice distorter turned on.   


"I'm not kidding here," she growled back. "Let them leave and forget this whole thing."   


"Um, Laurel, maybe appeasing the man who could shoot an arrow through our chest would maybe be the better idea. Not that I have any intentions of spilling your secrets, but maybe pissing the dude off isn't the best course of action," Sam said cautiously.   


"Sam, I've known the guy for years. He's very, very likely to put an arrow in your leg because he's done it to people he actually  _ likes _ . I'm trying to get you through this encounter without you having to call your angel friend."   


"What about the other guy, Roy, could he back you up?" Dean asked. "Because unless he has something to confess, the chick in the hood isn't him."   


"The 'chick in the hood' would like to know just how my ex is involved with you, jerk," Thea spat.   


Laurel groaned to herself. Dean's suggestion may have had merit if Roy was still around, but now Thea was pissed and Oliver would think that half of his team was keeping secrets from him.   


"Do you have anything?" Oliver suddenly asked.   


Dean and Sam looked around in confusion and Laurel could’ve smacked herself as a little voice began to speak in her ear.

“You know, for how active Sam and Dean Winchester are, they’re surprisingly hard to pin down. I mean, arrests, hospitals,  _ death certificates _ , twice I might add. I have no idea how they do it. I’ve cross referenced with known aliases and that just adds more to the list! Although, rock band names? Seriously? Any friends I can possibly find all have the same sort of record. Multiple arrests and warrants for everything from credit card theft, to grave desecration, to murder. I can’t figure these guys out.”

“Felicity, I’m begging you, please stop looking,” Laurel pleaded. “The records don’t show the full story. Although…” Shre turned to Sam and Dean who seemed to have figured out that there was somebody talking to them. “ _ Two _ deaths on record? That’s impressive even for hunters.”

“Oh, is earpiece looking up our record? What a joke!” Dean laughed. “We were shown once by an FBI agent. Total waste of the paper it was printed on. Over half was for reasons that nobody would comprehend. The only crime I think we can actually be completely accused guilty of is credit card fraud, but hunting doesn’t exactly pay you the best.”

“Dean, you’re not helping anything,” Laurel hissed.

“How do you know these two?” Oliver asked. She could see that his grip on his bow, while not tightening like an amateur, had been shifted so he could have a better reaction time ever since Felicity began talking.

“Please, Ol- Arrow, it doesn’t matter!” If she was in trouble now, it would all go to hell if she said his name. “I promise you, this is nothing you’ve dealt with before. You could almost call Sam and Dean vigilantes as well, but they help protect the whole country, even the whole world. This will end better for everyone if we can all go our separate ways. How I got involved with them has scarred me for the rest of my life. You have already gone through hell, each of us has. Please don’t add this to your burdens.”

“Take a vote,” Diggle said suddenly. He had been silently observing the whole confrontation. Oliver turned to glare at him and Dig glared right back. “We told you when you returned that things would be running differently now. Laurel’s opinion has as much weight as any of ours. If she wants to let this go, then that is taken into account, not just thrown out the window.”

“Fine, a  _ vote _ then,” Oliver practically sneered. “I would like the whole story.”

“Sorry, Laurel, but I want to know what the hell Roy was involved with that he couldn’t tell me. We kept too many secrets from each other and it broke us apart. I have to know this,” Thea apologized.

“I’m with Laurel,” Dig said, surprising her. “With everything going on in Central City, it would be foolish to assume that there is nothing in this world that can get to us anymore, even with our experience. I trust Laurel’s judgement. If she says that this isn’t something we can deal with, then I’m inclined to believe her.”

“You know what my vote is,” Laurel said, crossing her arms. Her heart warmed with Diggle’s declaration, but even she could count and she knew where the last vote was heading.

“Overwatch?”

“You know that I can never keep my nose out of other people’s business,” Felicity sighed. “I’m just going to keep looking into things.”

“I’m guessing from your looks that earpiece voted to bring us in,” Dean said as he observed Oliver’s triumphant smile. “Do we not get a say in this?”

“Base. Fifteen minutes.” Was all Oliver said before walking out of the warehouse.

“Well, that went about as well as expected,” Laurel muttered. Diggle and Thea were approaching with curiosity in their eyes.

“I’m guessing since you’re invited to the Arrow cave, early introductions aren’t a bad thing,” Thea said, pushing her hood down. “My name is Thea. Sorry my brother can be an ass sometimes, although you’re not forgiven for the chick comment.”

“You’re related to the guy? Geez, I’m sorry,” Dean said, shaking her hand. “Dean Winchester, at your service. Of course, I’m related to sasquatch over there so I can relate.”

“Hey!” Sam exclaimed while in the middle of introducing himself to Dig. “I’m pretty sure that people say I’m the nice one at least.”

“You are the nice one, Sam. Dean, you're a jerk to basically everyone,” Laurel sighed, exhaustion hitting her all of a sudden. “Am I the only one worried about what Oliver is going to do if we’re not back in fifteen minutes?” 

“Good point,” Thea shrugged. “Dig can take your bike back so you can ride with them. The van can sit here a few more hours.”

Diggle nodded his agreement and both walked out. Laurel turned to the brothers. “Last chance to run away now. I’m not happy about this, not the least because it means telling my past that I have kept hidden for so long. I should’ve known that I could never keep this to myself, but there is no need for you to be dragged into it.”

“If you’re going to get grilled, least we can do is be by your side,” Dean shrugged. “Besides, curiosity killed the cat. I kind of want to know who this Arrow guy is now.”

“We’ll be by your side Laurel,” Sam assured her quietly.

“Let’s get this over with.”

* * *

“Welcome to Arrow Cave number… Felicity, how many are we on now?” Laurel asked as the brothers walked in.

“Too many,” the tech girl laughed. “Hi, I’m Felicity. Tech girl extraordinaire. Also known as Overwatch.”

“Hi,” Sam stuttered and manage to shake her offered hand while still looking around, wide eyed. Dean was staring slack jawed at his surroundings and had yet to make a sound.

“Nice to meet you,” Felicity grinned. “But oh my gosh, I have so many questions. I mean, now is not the time and we’re all here to get answers anyway, but we’re just waiting for Oliver now. Oh no, I said his name, didn’t I? Oh well, common name. You can’t get anything out of it. He’s around here somewhere but wanted to get you guys in here first. He’s too suspicious sometimes. I mean, with your record, I would be too. But Laurel trusts you so I am going to as well.”

Sam looked at Laurel with pleading eyes and she laughed, taking pity on him. “Felicity, calm down.”

The tech girl looked down, suddenly embarrassed. “I’m just going to go wait by my computers.”

“Welcome, guys,” Thea greeted as she and John walked in. 

“You are really tiny,” Dean unthinkingly observed.

Thea raised an eyebrow at him. “Anybody want to take bets as to how quickly I can take Mr. Insensitive down?”

“Fifty dollars. Two minutes,” Diggle said immediately. 

“A hundred. Five,” Oliver said, finally walking in and joining them. At Thea’s angry look he smiled. “Just a plain take down, one minute. But you’d want to play with him too much.”

He turned around towards the Winchester brothers and Laurel and his face immediately went cold. “Hello. I’m-”

“Oliver Queen,” Sam finished in a hushed tone. “I can’t say I expected that one. It’s nice to meet you.”

While the whole team was still in their vigilante outfits, for most of them, a whole lot of the intimidation left as soon as they pulled their mask/hood/helmet off. Not Oliver. Especially for the brothers who knew what a seasoned fighter who had gone through hell looked like, seeing his eyes just made them more sure that they didn’t want to get on his bad side.

“I’m afraid I can’t say the same for you,” he said while shaking both of their hands. “What the hell are two very wanted men doing in my city?”

“You can’t be wanted if the people who want you think you’re dead,” Dean said.

“But as you’re both still very much alive, I’m afraid I’m going to have to rephrase my question. What the hell are two lying, murdering, thieves doing in my city?”

“Ouch,” Dean complained. “Pardon me, but I’m afraid that most of those labels can be applied to you, too.”

“Not helping, Dean,” Laurel growled as Oliver looked ready to shove an arrow in Dean’s eye. “Oliver, ignore Dean. He’s a jerk. Everything has an explanation. And while I’m sure that Sam and Dean would both be willing to tell a bit of the story, it’s how it relates to me that I’m worried about. Every explanation relates to a very dark and sensitive time in my past. One that I have only ever told a single person who wasn’t present for the events. I don’t like to talk about it which is why I’m asking you to just leave this alone. They keep more secrets than you do, Oliver. They would never betray your identity just like they would never betray mine. I’m begging you, this story is not something you want to hear.”

“Laurel, this is a safe place. Anything that has happened to you, we will be there for you and want to help you,” Thea said reassuringly. 

Oliver nodded his agreement. “You have wanted the team to be more open in the past. To not keep as many secrets. This is your chance to start.”

“Oliver you don’t tell us anything about your past until it comes back to haunt you and destroys this city! Why should I have to tell you a dark part of my past?”

“Because, just as you pointed out, I do tell when it starts to affect things in the present!” Oliver retorted, clearly frustrated and losing his patience. “If tonight had never happened, I would’ve never asked this of you but we cannot fight things we don’t know anything about. Whatever knife these two guys gave you worked. We need that!”

“My past is not easy for me. And what Sam and Dean deal with, it’s not something that you can forget. I promise you that. If I tell you it will forever dwell on your mind,” she warned, including the rest of the team in her glance. Oliver may be the leader, but this knowledge was something that the rest of the team had to decide they wanted to know themselves. “Last warning.”

“Get on with it already,” Thea groaned.

“Fine. Do you believe in magic?” The reactions were varied. From Thea’s “Excuse me?” to Diggle’s and Felicity’s confused expressions to Oliver short, curt nod.

“Really, Oliver?” she asked, incredulous.

“I’ll explain some other time,” he dismissed. “But yes, I have seen real magic performed in front of me.”

“Okay,” she shrugged. “That was the easiest introduction. How about cursed objects? Ghosts?”

All shakes of the heads this time. She heard Dean snort behind her. “Demons? Angels? Heaven? Hell?”

Again shakes except for Oliver’s “The ritual guy believed in that.”

“Congratulations, maybe you’re not as naive as the other 99% of the world,” Dean said sarcastically. She glared at him and he mimed locking his lips.

“And the fun stuff,” she continued. “Vampires? Werewolves? Ghouls? Skinwalkers? Don’t believe in any of them? Shame. They’re all real.”

She held up her hand against the protests that immediately left everybody’s lips. “This right here is the number one reason people don’t know. They don’t believe. Sam and Dean are what this supernatural world would call hunters. They go after these monsters and creatures to protect human life. At great personal risk, I might add. All of the things I named and more are real and very, very serious. The men we were fighting tonight? They were possessed by demons. That’s what made them so incredibly resistant.”

“The blade that I gave Laurel tonight is called an angel blade,” Sam continued. “Yes, it was once owned by an angel of heaven. It’s one of the most powerful weapons in the universe. After the angels attempted to initiate the apocalypse a few years ago, we ended up with a whole stash because of how many we had to take out. But don’t worry about that. It was taken care of.”

“I don’t believe this,” Diggle muttered.

“I told you, you will never be able to forget,” Laurel sighed. “I certainly never could.”

“Where do you fit into this?” Felicity asked. She saw the raised eyebrows and how both brothers took a step closer to Laurel in support and quickly continued. “I mean, you obviously know Sam and Dean and what they do, but how on earth did you find out? From what I could tell of their record, they are never in one place long. I’m guessing however long it takes to do this “hunting” thing that you’re talking about before moving along. How did you get involved in all of this?”

“It’s hard not to when the demon possessing you is obsessed with the Winchesters.”

In a split second, she had two bows and a gun aimed at her face. She chuckled dryly. “For how long ago you just learned that demons exist, you have surprisingly quick reaction times to thinking I am possessed by one. Not that you’re arrows or bullets would do any good anyway. This is a very personal story and one that only two people alive know, both standing right here beside me.”

“We are here for you, Laurel,” Thea said quietly, lowering her bow. The others followed her lead.

She gave a short nod at her friend before starting. “I would like to explain to you all first what demon possession actually is. Demons really don’t have a physical form on this plane. If you see one not possessing a human, it appears as a black cloud of smoke. So, to be able to do anything, the demon must possess a human body. The human inside gets shoved aside. This can sometimes kill the person inside, sometimes the person is just forced to sit there and watch as their body moves without their control. Sometimes, they manage to see flashes of the outside world, but most of the time, you’re just floating in the cruel, empty darkness.”

Sam quietly slipped his hand inside of hers. She didn’t care at the moment. She was on the edge of tears and needed the support. The support that only Sam Winchester, the man possessed by Lucifer himself, would know how to give the victim of a demon possession. Their fight didn’t matter at the moment and she would deal with the consequences later. She held his hand tightly and continued.

“It was 2007, not long after the boat accident. I needed to get away from Starling for a while. My cheating boyfriend was dead, my sister was dead, and my parents were constantly fighting. I was in a horrible place so I went over to Wyoming. I didn’t think that anybody would follow me there. I was a victim of a mugging gone wrong.* I was rescued, ironically enough, by a demon called Ruby. I was bleeding out in the street and she took care of my attackers. Ironically again, she saved my life.”

“Only bit of good that bitch ever did,” Dean growled. 

She ignored him. “As Dean here tends to crudely say, the body that the demon possesses is a “meat suit”. It’s just clothes that they put on. If the body is damage by normal, human means, the demon lives on. Of course, they would be very obvious if they went around with all of the damage that a body can sustain showing so they tend to heal the outside damage like one would sew up a tear on a shirt. Ruby decided to possess me and she healed my wounds, from the outside at least. For a year, I had no control over my body. Surprisingly, I was kept pretty up to date as to things that were happening on the outside, especially what was happening in the supernatural world with the approaching apocalypse. I wasn’t really given the chance for disbelief in the supernatural world when I was possessed by a demon and in the brief glimpses I saw of the outside world, every one involved some sort of monster. She was obsessed, I suppose you could say, with Sam here for reasons too long to say and not my story to tell. I learned a lot about them and everything that we don’t want to admit is happening around us in that time. To avoid this story from going on forever, in short, Ruby was expelled from my body. Sam was there and immediately brought me to a hospital because while Ruby healed the superficial wounds, I had a lot of internal bleeding, especially after the numerous fights that she got into while using my body. The doctors were baffled as to how I had so many injuries without a mark on my skin. I was lucky to be alive. Sam stayed with me and we became friends until my parents finally came to take me back home. We have stayed in touch over the years.”

As she finished her story, she looked around the room, thinking questions were going to immediately assualt her. Everybody looked to be in their own little world. Diggle was staring off into the distance. Felicity had her head in her hands and Laurel could see her mind working to figure out how she couldn’t have known about this. Thea looked like she was debating with herself as to whether give Laurel a hug or to run far, far away. Laurel couldn’t blame her. Oliver had slowly taken the outer jacket of his arrow suit off and place it down gently, leaving him in a white shirt.

“How much do you gentlemen know about rituals?” he asked.

She and the two brothers were startled. That was not a question they thought they were going to be asked.

“Um, quite a bit, why?” Sam asked.

“Any idea what this means?” He lifted up his shirt and a series of characters could be seen in a straight line on his torso. “The man who gave me this, a guy by the name of John Constantine, transferred these symbols off of his own arm and onto me. Said it would be “insurance” against a man we were fighting.” 

“I can’t say that we have any personal experience with that sort of warding, but I think it’s a magic resistance mark,” Sam said after a moment. “Inscribing symbols onto your skin can be one of the best ways to use protection spells because it’s not like a charm or something that can be taken away. Both Dean and I have antipossession tattoos so that demons can’t possess us. Whoever gave you that is good and you should be lucky to be given a gift like that.”

“Okay, thanks,” Oliver shrugged. “I guess we all have a lot to learn if we’re going to be facing these things.”

“What? No!” Laurel gasped. “Oliver, I did not tell you that story so that you could go fight these things! You may have good fighting training, but if you don’t have the knowledge, you’re only going to get yourself killed. I may know a bit, but we don’t have the access to the kinds of books, scrolls, and other obscure information that these guys do. Every hunt starts with a ton of research and we don’t have the time or resources. Besides, Sam and Dean try to make it back into town if something comes up on their radar, like tonight.”

“So this whole supernatural fighting thing has happened before?”

“Argh, you are so beyond frustrating!” Laurel groaned. “Yes, once before. We fought a coven of vampires. I don’t know if you guys remember when there were bodies being left in the Glades, drained of blood, but they disappeared before anybody really got to them?”

“Oh,” Felicity said, recognition dawning on her face. “And that’s how Roy knows these guys, too! I made you promise that if you got in over your head that you would at least tell Roy what was going on to keep you safe!”

“You’re absolutely right, Felicity,” Laurel nodded. “There was… a bit of unexpected trouble and Roy agreed to help out. We never really talked about it again. He knew that if something like that happened again, I would come to him and we’d figure it out. He was okay with being kept in the dark. He didn’t care about what else was out there, just that we were all safe.

Thea was smiling a bit at hearing Roy being praised. Oliver looked like he wanted to punch Roy for keeping secrets, but Felicity’s hand on his arm calmed him down.

“Well I, for one, can’t just sit here while these things roam our streets and threaten my city,” he said.

“There are two ways to become a hunter: revenge or justice,” Dean shrugged. 

“They are not hunters!” Laurel shouted. “This was never suppose to happen!”

“But now it has,” Dean argued. “And you can’t say that it wouldn’t be nice to get some extra help if something is ever threatening Starling. I’m not saying that they should take it up full time like we do, but we can at least educate them a bit. If something like that psycho vampire thing happens again, we don’t need to be so alone in handling it.”

“Fine, I give up,” Laurel cried, throwing her hands up in the air and stalking away. Or she was until Diggle’s arms caught her. She immediately broke down. She was exhausted. Replaying her story tonight had taken so much out of her. The emotions she was reliving only brought her further onto her knees. So she cried. She felt two small sets of arms encircling her waist that she knew were Felicity’s and Thea’s. And, after a moment, two strong hands on her shoulders that belonged to Oliver.

* * *

 

“Thank you for the privacy,” she said quietly, sitting down next to Sam on a couch in the back of the lair.

“You needed to be with your team. Dean and I could see that,” he replied with a small smile. While she was being supported with her family of teammates, Dean and Sam had left them alone to comfort and hold each other. Afterwards, Dean offered to give the rest of the team a very quick and basic rundown of the supernatural world which she had elected to sit out of. Which led her to sitting next to Sam.

“I didn’t think that things would ever turn out this way,” she said quietly.

“But they did. You’re safe and your team is okay. You’re supported by more people than you know. Come here.”

She settled herself in Sam’s arms, telling herself that it was only this one last time. She was tired and worn, they both were, and she needed to relax. He began playing with a bit of her hair and she didn’t need to see his face to know that he was deep in thought.

“What’s on your mind?”

“You weren’t mad at just us, were you?” Sam asked quietly. “I saw tonight how overlooked you can be. Yes, you were mad at not being included, for us not trusting you fully. But that was amplified because that’s how you were treated here. Since you became a vigilante, I’m guessing.”

Laurel closed her eyes and sank deeper into his embrace. “I realized that not days after you left. I took out my anger with Oliver on you, yes Dean too, but especially you. You didn’t deserve that. Yes, I would’ve been mad anyway, but after being treated that way for months. Like I couldn’t do shit. Like I couldn’t make my own freaking choices. I just… I could take it out on you. Even if I yelled and screamed at Oliver, nothing would happen except for him permanently banning me from here. I will never forgive myself for letting those two halfs of my life interfere with each other. And that cost was our friendship, and whatever else we had.”

“Laurel, I forgive you. Of course I do,” Sam murmured. “But while I’ll always love you, you will never leave Starling and I can never stay still. What we have between us could never last. You deserve so much more than me. It’s not easy for people like us to have friendships or relationships, but promise me that you won’t let let me or this life of yours to get in the way of your happiness.”

“I could be dead next week,” Laurel sighed. “I have no intention of stopping anytime soon and you should know that this path of defending the innocent only has one end. I can’t drag anybody else into this.”

“Then don’t drag somebody in. Cherish the people you have now. If these are the only people who can understand you, don’t lose them. These are your friends, the people you trust to watch your back. Most of all, they are your family, just like I will always be. The best man I’ve ever known use to always say that family doesn’t end with blood. Don’t ever forget that.”

She thought back to the night she’s had. She smiled to herself and allowed her eyes to close. For the first time since her possession, she finally felt accepted.

**Author's Note:**

> *she was a victim of an almost rape in the story, but that wouldn't be something that she would bring up willingly, especially when it's not pertinent to the story that she's currently telling.
> 
> Oh my gosh I'm done. Again, I just want to give the biggest thank you to all of my readers. You guys are the absolute best. Please leave a review with your thoughts on how it's ended!
> 
> Till the next time:)
> 
> Pointeofdance


End file.
